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SAT and ACT Score Reporting

Last week during our College 101 meeting we talked about the differences between the SAT and the ACT. We had a great discussion with the juniors who attended, and many great questions were asked. We weren’t anticipating that students would have questions about score reporting, but that topic kept coming up, and it seemed like there was a lot of confusion surrounding the process. Hopefully this post clears some of that up!

For the SAT:

Students may choose 4 colleges to send score reports to free of charge – BUT – that request needs to be made within a certain window of time. Test takers have from the time they register until 9 days after the test to take advantage of the four free reports. Any additional score report costs $10 per college. IF students miss that deadline, then EVERY score report requested is $10. You miss out on the freebies! We highly recommend that you take advantage of the four free reports. If you know that you’re going to apply to a certain college (or have already applied), why wait to see your scores?

The College Board sends out a cumulative score report (colleges will see all scores from all administrations that you sat for) unless you use Score Choice, which we do not recommend (schools tend to want to see all your SAT scores). Click here for more information: http://sat.collegeboard.org/scores/send-sat-scores

For the ACT:

Like the SAT, 4 score reports are included in the ACT registration fee. The window of time to take advantage of the 4 free reports is a bit different, though. ACT-takers have from the time of registration until the Thursday following the Saturday administration. Each additional report costs $12. Once that window of time closes, every score report will cost you $12.

Should you wait to see your ACT scores before sending them to colleges? It might be a good idea. The reason we say that is the ACT score report is NOT cumulative – each test administration is a separate record. You choose which one you want the ACT to send to colleges. Knowing that, you may want to wait until the scores come out (this obviously assumes that you have taken the ACT more than once). Click here for more information: http://www.actstudent.org/scores/send/

Keep in mind that this information is really meant for the fall – we realize that junior test takers probably aren’t going to be sending scores out to colleges just yet!

Does this clear up some of the confusion surrounding score reporting? Let us know what questions you have!